Oregon bottle redemption rate reaches 90 percent

Oregonians recycled around 2 billion containers last year, the most ever under the program.

Posted: Jan. 22, 2019 10:21 AM

Updated: Jan. 30, 2019 5:10 PM

Posted By: Associated Press

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, which oversees the state's bottle deposit program, says about 90 percent of the containers covered by the plan were returned and redeemed in 2018.

That's a jump of around 35 percent over where the figure stood just two years ago.

The Bulletin reports Oregonians recycled around 2 billion containers last year, the most ever under the program.

Joel Schoening, community relations manager for the cooperative, attributed the uptick primarily to two recent efforts to revamp the state's bottle redemption program: dramatically expanding the types of containers included in the program and raising the deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents in April 2017.